


run sure-footed, newly freed

by GuardianKarenTerrier



Series: adrien augreste 2020 [24]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien AUGreste 2020, Fluff, Gen, Hinted OT4, Platonic Cuddling, Podfic Welcome, Team, Team Dynamics, hinted ninoir, i'm more of a dog person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:40:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26164279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuardianKarenTerrier/pseuds/GuardianKarenTerrier
Summary: "I dunno, dude, I'm more of a dog person."Chat Noir pulls a face, though he makes absolutely no attempt to move from where he's sprawled with his head across Nino's stomach.  Nino's got one hand buried in his hair, scratching just behind his ears as they twitch and swivel, so Marinette's sure Chat's not going to move unless or until something makes him.Odds are beginning to tip in favour of an akuma battle forcing him up, because it's not looking like anything else is going to.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Nino Lahiffe, Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Nino Lahiffe
Series: adrien augreste 2020 [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860751
Comments: 58
Kudos: 240





	run sure-footed, newly freed

**Author's Note:**

> for the 'i'm more of a dog person' prompt for adrien augreste 2020! brought to you by someone whos never understood the concept of dog person vs cat person like, at all, what is this binary nonsense, why _is there always binary nonsense-_

"I dunno, dude, I'm more of a dog person." 

Chat Noir pulls a face, though he makes absolutely no attempt to move from where he's sprawled with his head across Nino's stomach. Nino's got one hand buried in his hair, scratching just behind his ears as they twitch and swivel, so Marinette's sure Chat's not going to move unless or until something makes him. 

Odds are beginning to tip in favour of an akuma battle forcing him up, because it's not looking like anything else is going to. 

She can't begrudge him that, though. She can't begrudge Nino that either- not after some of the conversation's Alya's dragged her off to have. 

Marinette's still uncomfortably sure some of those conversations had skated perilously close to breaking Nino's confidence, and the fact that most of them are things Nino had also confided to Chat Noir and Marinette herself on these late nights doesn't make that any better. 

It does mean she reluctantly steels her resolve _not_ to let Alya know that she's Ladybug. Even though she doesn't think it's deliberate on Alya's part at all, and even though she doesn't think Alya would ever have had those conversations with anyone _but_ her, it's still too much of a risk. 

(Unless Marinette decides to tell Nino and Adrien too, it's too much of a risk). 

Marinette would never tell anyone else before Chat anyway, he doesn't deserve that from her, but she's definitely been starting to hesitantly ask Tikki exactly how sure she is about the identity rule. Marinette's honoured to be chosen to be the next Guardian but she also doesn't know what she's _doing._ Wayzz is a great help, but there are still things he can't tell her or that he just doesn't know. 

Marinette's beginning to suspect that Master Fu had just been making up a lot of things on the fly anyway. 

And Wayzz did confirm that Master Fu had been nowhere near to finishing his own training when he'd taken the Miracle Box and run. 

(She knows that's an uncharitable way to put it, but well, he sort of _had._ ) _  
_

"Take that back," Chat Noir is insisting, although since it's through a yawn and he's blinking drowsily as he butts his head clumsily against Nino's hands it doesn't come out as insistent as he's probably trying for. "Cats are the best." 

"N-o," Nino says, pretending to be thoughtful. "No, I'm pretty sure that's dogs, dude." 

Chat hisses at him, tail lashing hard enough to thump against Marinette's knee where she's leaning against Nino's side, and she leans around Nino to raise an eyebrow at Chat Noir. 

"Dogs," she says, pretending to think about it. "I'm with Nino here. Dogs are loyal, and hard-working, and playful, and-" Her mouth keeps moving but no sound comes out. 

Nino pushes himself up the slightest bit, careful not to let Chat slip away from him or to lose his place ruffling Chat's hair. "Hey Marinette, I think our cat might be a dog." 

_Loving,_ had been the next word Marinette had been about to say. She swallows it back, hard. 

Besides, she would never want to risk implying that either Chat or Plagg _aren't_ loving. They love so hard and burn so bright it scares her, because she's seen them burn _out,_ and someday there might not be any magical ladybug swarm to bring them back to her. 

"I am _not,_ " Chat Noir whines, clearly pouting now. 

He doesn't move away from Nino in the slightest. 

Nino rolls his eyes, then exhales when he looks down and meets Chat's eyes. Marinette can't see them from this position, but she can picture them all too clearly- bright in the dark and glittering with pretended hurt and painful trust. 

"I can like both," Nino offers, weakly. "But dude, foxes are canines. You _know_ how disappointed Rena gets when they think they haven't got fans." 

Marinette plucks up the corner of Nino's fox-patterned bedspread, showing it to him with a raised eyebrow, and then gives his Rena Rouge pyjamas a pointed look. She knows he asked for them custom, because he'd asked _her_. "Pretty sure Rena knows, Nino." 

Nino flushes, averting his eyes. 

He doesn't stop petting Chat, though. 

"Maybe we can agree that lap cats are a happy medium, then," Marinette says, leaning over to brush a stray bit of hair from Chat's eyes. 

He twists enough to look up at her, blinking slowly at both of them as he does. "What?" 

She gestures at his untidy sprawl. His left leg dangles off the bed entirely. "I said you're a spoiled housecat." 

Chat's ears flick, indignant, but still again immediately at Nino's soft touch. Chat opens his mouth, probably to protest, and Marinette locks eyes with him before reaching over and flicking his bell. 

Chat settles further into Nino's hands with a disgruntled grumble that trails off into an outright purr. 

"A _very_ spoiled housecat," Marinette teases, withdrawing to slump more into Nino's side. Nino shifts, absently, and then wraps his free arm around her. 

"I think maybe you're all pretty spoiled, honestly." 

Nino sits up so fast Marinette almost falls over, because Nino immediately switched his steadying arm to Chat instead of her. Marinette feels vaguely like she should be a little hurt by that. She's not, but maybe she should be. 

Alya is lounging across the windowsill, arms crossed over each other and dangling into the room. 

Marinette's climbed Nino's building enough times to know that the other side of that window is a sheer drop. She can't help eyeing Alya's position with trepidation. 

Alya notices. Their grin grows wider, but they heave themselves up and then tumble the rest of the way into the room. "Hey, heard you started the party without me." 

"You had detention," Nino notes dryly, even as he shifts to make space for them on the bed. " _Again,_ Al, you had detention _again."_

They toss their hair back, light glinting off their glasses in a way Marinette's pretty sure they've practised. "Journalism waits for no one!" 

"Okay but that's not gonna cut it as a reason to jump out a second story window in the middle of class, Alya. There's- there's literally no reason good enough that you can give for that, dude. We know, you've tried." 

"It was fine," Alya says, waving dismissively. "I know how far it is to the next roof." 

Marinette doesn't think Alya should be able to make that jump without Trixx, but that's a subject Tikki has been curiously tight-lipped on. Marinette knows that Chat's Miraculous has had more of an effect on him than the kwami had anticipated, because it's a hard thing _not_ to notice, but she hadn't thought any of the others were likely to experience that. 

She and Chat never take their Miraculous off. That was probably always bound to have some side effects. 

She doesn't have any idea why _these_ two are affected. 

And it _is_ specifically Nino and Alya that are affected. Marinette's checked, both discreetly and by going to the others as Ladybug and asking outright. The only other one who _maybe_ is showing signs of their Miraculous digging deep the way Chat's has- the way Marinette's own has, though far less noticeably than her partner's- is Kagami, and she's not sure just how much of those dragon traits are just _Kagami._

(And some of Chat's traits might just be Chat, but that's not the impression she gets from Plagg). 

Even Alix is less affected, and from what they can get out of their kwami Fluff is _supposed_ to bond unusually strongly, specifically so that no one ends up lost in time. 

Alix is also in the weird position of being Alix's own responsibility, since they still can't figure out exactly when or how the Rabbit ends up with her. With her family. With her? 

As an heirloom, passed down from an ancestor who is almost certainly _also_ Alix. 

...they mostly just don't talk about Alix's Miraculous. 

Chat Noir turns pleading eyes to Marinette. "You're not _actually_ a dog person, right?" He makes a face on 'dog person.' 

"I think you've taken all the cat person quotient for yourself, catboy," Marinette tells him dryly, but she reaches across Nino to flick Chat's bell as she does, and Alya joins them on the bed, and the way Chat Noir starts purring when they all pile around him means that they _all_ feel it. 

Tikki stays unusually quiet on these nights, probably because of Chat Noir's hearing, but Marinette still catches the faint sound of her kwami's delighted laughter. 

It's a little tricky to get away to meet Chat Noir so that the two of them can go meet Alya and Nino the next day (at least Trixx is having fun), but seeing the way their friend's faces light up at the sight of their kwami is worth it. 

Seeing their _kwami's_ faces when Chat Noir and Ladybug take turns explaining that they're _staying_ with Nino and Alya this time is... 

Marinette regrets that they hadn't decided to do this sooner. 

She thinks if it had been Chat Noir instead of her that Master Fu had asked to hand out Miraculous, they _would_ have done this sooner. 

She wonders if that's one of the reasons he _hadn't_ asked Chat. 

Marinette will have to wait and see how this decision works out before she decides how safe it is- or isn't- to tell Alya or Nino who she is. 

She has someone else to tell first. 

"Hey- can you meet me by the tunnels tonight, kitty?" 

**Author's Note:**

> foxes is dog hardware running cat software ~~i identify very strongly with foxes~~
> 
> constantly wearing ladybug miraculous side effects include 'sleeping with earrings in all the time is SO UNCOMFORTABLE that it gets PAINFUL' 
> 
> i cant be the only one who's thought about that 
> 
> titles from purple jaguar eye from kipo and the age of wonderbeasts! _please watch kipo and the age of wonderbeasts_
> 
> edit: so apparently earrings are not supposed to do that! i was heavily coerced into getting my ears pierced as a kid, got taken to a place that was not even a little bit professional, and got infected after, so uh, in retrospect this seems obvious


End file.
